Roodeplaat Dam is a concrete arch dam situated in South Africa on the Pienaars River (also known along parts of its length as the Moretele River and Moreleta Spruit[
]),
a tributary of the Crocodile River, which flows northwards into the Limpopo River. The dam is a warm monomictic impoundment with stable thermal stratification during the summer.[Walmsley RD, Toerien DF, Steyn DJ. An Introduction to the Limnology of Roodeplaat Dam. Journal of the Limnological Society of South Africa. 1978;4(1):35–52.]
Use
Roodeplaat Dam was originally an irrigation dam, and soon became popular for recreation. Later it became an important source for Magalies Water, a state-owned water board that supplies potable water to a large area north of Pretoria.
[Roodeplaat Dam, Pienaars River Government Water Scheme, Department of Water Affairs, 1989, Pretoria. 4pp.] The hazard potential of the dam has been ranked high.
[
]
Water quality
Roodeplaat Dam's catchment contains a large part of the rapidly expanding municipality of
Tshwane, which includes
Pretoria. Two sewage treatment works feed treated effluent to the dam, resulting in highly
eutrophic conditions comparable with those experienced in Hartbeespoort Dam. These conditions were already apparent in the mid-1970s
and have not improved.
[Van Ginkel CE, Silberbauer MJ. Temporal trends in total phosphorus, temperature, oxygen, chlorophyll a and phytoplankton populations in Hartbeespoort Dam and Roodeplaat Dam, South Africa, between 1980 and 2000. African Journal of Aquatic Science 32. 2007;1:63–70. Online: ] Consequences of eutrophication include blooms of
algae and
cyanobacteria, and dense mats of
water hyacinth (
Eichhornia crassipes).
The Department of Water Affairs' Resource Quality Information Services directorate is housed on the banks of Roodeplaat Dam, near the wall.
See also
-
List of dams and reservoirs in South Africa
